Responsible Rehoming: Why It Isn’t Always a Failure

Hello, dog peeps. Jack here. Just a quick one before we get into this episode. You may or may not be aware that when I'm not talking dog stuff with Max, I in fact interview people who are incarcerated in prisons across the United States on a show called One Minute Remaining Stories from the Inmates. And that show has been nominated for an award in America. And I would love your support if you've got 60 seconds to click the link in the show notes of this episode and just vote for my show. That would be amazing if you could. Thank you very much indeed. Oh, and don't forget to verify your email address. Otherwise, the vote does not count.

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Ready to go.

Let's do it. It's the Dog People Podcast with your host Jack Lawrence. Secretly, I decided to start this podcast for some free dog training advice. You know, Malinois seem to be like the dog at the moment. Like, I think people see them on Instagram doing these incredible things.

Yeah.

Go, oh my God, that's awesome. And then they get one like, oh my God, what the fuck? And Max O'Neill.

You would not believe how many people I meet And I go, what made you want to get, say, an Aussie Shepherd? They go, I don't know. I go, had you met one before? They go, no. If you want to ask me how often I walk my own dog a week, it's only twice a week.

It's the Dog People Podcast, the podcast giving you a no-nonsense approach to dog training so you never have to shout, it's okay, he's friendly. My name is Jack Lawrence, not a dog trainer, just a dog training enthusiast. But of course, as always, joined by Max O'Neill from the Down Under Dog Trainer. And Max, today we are definitely going to be hitting the world of controversial topics when it comes to Dogs and this world, because we are talking rehoming of dogs, which is for a lot of people, it is the most no-no thing there is. You never rehome a dog. But you and I are actually both coming from this at an angle of there is in fact certain occasions when it's probably best for everybody involved in the situation that a dog is rehomed.

Exactly right.

It's not ideal, but sometimes it's the only thing that you can do.

Yeah. And sometimes it is the ideal situation. So straight off the bat, we want to say we're certainly not a Have have a blanket rule of being opposed to rehoming a dog. Like a lot of people, a lot of people say you're a piece of shit if you rehome a dog. Well, no, it's a lot more nuanced than that, and there's a few parties involved which we're going to break down today. And we're not encouraging everyone to go out there and you know their dog and send them away. But we're also saying like sometimes there is a situation where that's ideal, and we're going to give you some examples and talk about the pros and cons today. Because when it comes to rehoming a dog, there's three main parties. There's You, the current owner, there's the new owner, but there's also your dog. And there are situations I've seen and been a part of plenty of times where it's a win-win-win for all 3 parties when that dog is moved on into a new and better home. And we're going to chat about that a bit today.

Yeah. So, and I mean, I personally have experience with rehoming a dog a long time ago now, but it was, it's something that I still, I actually have extreme guilt over, even though I know it was the right thing to do at the time. But it's one of those things where I just at the time knew nothing. And I look back and I go, if only I knew then what I know now, I could have helped that dog.

Yeah.

So my situation came when, when I met my wife, she had a dog, beautiful dog who we had until she passed away a couple of years ago, which is when we got Kira. But she had this dog and she had it when we met and they were best of buds, you know, had that great connection. And I'd always wanted a dog as a kid growing up. My parents didn't let us have a dog because they knew that they'd end up looking after it, which would have been probably true. So, you know, I was finally out now on my own. I was in a serious relationship. My wife had this dog. We were working, you know, did the classic, oh, I think Kimber was her dog. I said, I think Kimber needs a friend. You know, she's lonely. You know, all that classic stuff.

Yep.

I convinced my wife, let's get a dog. We found a dog which was a German Shepherd cross Kelpie. So another mistake instantly, knowing nothing about the breed of German Shepherds, knowing really nothing about the breed of Kelpies and, and the high intensity of both those breeds.

You don't see many Shelpies. Shout out to one of our clients, Harley the Shelpie. Great dogs.

Yeah. I mean, look, I mean, we saw this dog, fell in love with the dog, took the dog home. And again, I, it was the stupidest decision that I ever made in my life, but we made the decision. I started training the dog. Everything was fine for a while. He had separation anxiety pretty much from the very start. So he was, uh, it was a nervous dog to start with. I made the second mistake, uh, on top of all of this, which was to take him to a dog park when he was very young. And I was an absolute moron, took him into the dog park where we took our other dog, who was totally fine with dog parks. He got into an incident where he was pinned by another dog. And basically from that moment on, it changed him. He became reactive towards other dogs. It started off not being too bad and the problem just got worse and worse and worse. And then we moved to Melbourne. He came with us to Melbourne. He came off that plane again, just like even more nervous and like just scared because we'd chucked him into a plane and he wasn't crate trained.

Yep.

So tick for another idiotic move on my part. So, and then we got down there and everything was sort of okay. We had a couple of little incidents with, with dogs, but nothing too bad. Then my daughter was born and it seemed to just skyrocket this aggression against other dogs. And my wife was taking him out for a walk once, had my daughter in the pram, the 2 dogs, and another dog came, didn't do anything towards him, just came towards the pram and he just lost it and just went absolutely apeshit attacking the dog. You know, my wife's trying to handle the pram and it was just insane.

Damn.

It was just an insane situation. Anyway, we got trainers in. I think we ended up spending about $1,000 or more on trainers. And again, now knowing what I know now and looking back at these trainers, I'm like, you gave me nothing.

Yeah.

You gave me no help here. You gave me— not one of them spoke about mental stimulation. One bloke came in and told me to buy a weighted vest and put that on the dog as we went walking to tire him out more because we were taking him on, you know, again, I was like, I'm taking these dogs on like 2-hour walks a day, one in the morning, one at night. He was still being destructive, still escaping. He would escape on a very regular basis. He was jumping 6-foot fences and getting out almost on the daily.

Jeez.

Calls daily from neighbours, dogs got out. And then I was panicking that he was getting out because I'm like, he's dog aggressive. If he gets out and I'm not there and he attacks a dog, someone's going to get him put down or he's going to get hit by a car. As always with these situations, it was causing tension and stress in the house. With me and my wife, we had my baby, the baby.

And clearly the dog's not happy either.

Clearly the dog was just not happy, stressed all the time. We tried to leave the house, you know, it got to the point where I was like, I'm going to have to try and maybe tie him up because he would just keep jumping. We can't go anywhere anyway. Then he was barking the house down and it just was just insane. And I had to get to that point where I'm like, he's not happy. We're not happy. I need to try and rehome him.

Yeah.

So I managed to rehome him, and my biggest fear was that he would attack another dog and get put down. Anyway, so he'd been gone about a week, and I actually got a call from the organization that was helping us with the rehoming. And I was like, oh no, what's happened? Anyway, so I answered and she's like, oh, I just need to get a few extra details on Bud and his situation, blah, blah, blah. So I told her, I said, look, I know I'm not allowed to know much about what's going on, but can you just me how he's been with other dogs. And she said, he's been absolutely beautiful. Like, he hasn't so much as growled at another dog.

Nice.

So that was almost like a weight lifted off my chest going, I've done the right thing.

Yeah.

Because my wife and I, I'll be honest, like the night I took him to this place to surrender him for rehoming, I came home, we both bawled our eyes out at home.

Yeah.

Like, because we just felt so much guilt. And I still to this day feel so much guilt about that situation. And that's again, the reason that When I eventually, once our, cause we obviously didn't get another dog since after that, we kept our dog at home who again, like we've spoken in the past about, you know, is it right for your dog getting a second dog? She all of a sudden was sleeping upside down like they do, belly shown, which she hadn't done the entire time we had him. So she wasn't comfortable having another dog in the house. It was just a shit decision all round. But anyway, so we never got another dog obviously. And we had our dog until she passed away of cancer a couple of years ago. And then We got Kira and that's when I made that decision there and then, because I didn't want another working breed like him. And obviously she's a working breed. I was like, no, I'm not. And we just fostered her. And then she stayed with us so long. I was like, okay, well, if she's staying with us, I'm doing this right. And I'm going, I'm from, from day one, I'm getting my ducks in a row and we are going to make sure this works. And obviously then that's when I met you. But yeah, so that's, that's essentially the story of my rehoming situation. And that's why when I see other people rehoming, I'm certainly not one to judge at all.

Yeah.

Because everyone's situations are different. I mean, it's different when you see someone who's rehoming like a 6-month-old puppy.

Oh, when I see people rehoming dogs, it's like, you know, less than 6 months. And it's always a change in circumstances. And look, sometimes that's truthful. Sometimes you definitely see some like, dude, you got to stick at this longer. Like, you know, puppy raising and rearing isn't as fun as you think, but stick at it. Like, it will get better. But you're right. Sometimes it is just— there's no judgment because sometimes it is just the best thing for everyone.

I'm part of a couple of groups where they have these, you know, there are these groups where they sort of like, it's no, it's no judgment groups, although there still is judgment. Obviously you get these no judgment groups about rehoming. Someone puts up a post about rehoming and they're like, how could you do that? Guys, it's supposed to be a no judgment group. So yeah, so I mean, look, rehoming, I honestly feel so much guilt about that dog, so much. And I wish I knew the things I know now, but obviously I can't go back and change that. All I can do now is, which I have done hopefully, is educate myself. So that one, it doesn't happen again. And two, I can hopefully try and help others so that it doesn't happen to them. And that's another reason why I did fostering for so long, because I think I'm just constantly trying to make up for Bud. Yeah. You know, and taking in all these foster dogs until they find homes to try and make amends for the— for my mess up.

I think you've more than done that, mate.

Well, I hope so. I still feel guilty though. I always will about that damn dog. Yeah.

So like we said from the get-go, if, if you look at the parties involved and you raise a point like your other dog you had at home, like their life was improved, Bud's life was improved, your life was improved. And it sounds like the place he went to was, you know, because they got the best out of him, would have found him a home that he was compatible with. And it's a win-win-win-win across the board. And you go, well, ultimately, I think, you know, you'd say overall that's, you know, although it's sad and tough, it's probably a better move for everyone.

And it was 100%, like it was 100% the right thing to do. Yeah, hands down.

Yeah.

So, and I certainly don't regret doing it. The only thing I regret is obviously getting him in the first place.

Yeah.

And just not being educated, basically.

Yeah, exactly. And that's this whole rhetoric of like, a dog's a dog for life. If you've made the commitment, you've got to stick to it. And I, but I see some people, I'm like, what this dog needs is so far above what you're able to give them, whether that's knowledge, time, resources, effort. Whatever. And you go, there's no point. If you keep this dog for the next 10 years, that dog's going to be miserable. You're going to be miserable. Why ruin slash waste both of your lives? Like, if you can find a better home where that dog is going to go upgrade and you know that you go, oh, there's a big weight lifted and the new person goes, how good is this? This is my kind of dog. Then it's a win-win-win for everyone.

Have you ever advised anyone that they should probably—

Yeah. And I've got that written down in my show notes today is just a few examples. We're going to keep this all anonymous. But I've actually been a part of a few rehoming things, and sometimes it's for better, sometimes it's worse, but we'll give you some examples.

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What's going on?

I'm Arch Manning, Biore athlete and college quarterback. Whether I'm running, training, traveling, or just unwinding at home, I love doing it in my Core Shorts from Biore. With a breathable boxer brief liner, they're quick to dry, super versatile, and stand up to even my most intense training sessions. Plus, they come in 3 inseams and a ton of colors. Ready to try a pair? Go to vuori.com/arch and get 20% off at checkout. I think you're going to love them as much as I do. That's vuori.com/arch and get 20% off your first order. Exclusions apply. Visit the website for full terms and conditions. Not only will you receive 20% off your first purchase, but enjoy free shipping on any US orders over $75 and free returns. Have a great day.

So story 1, we have a person with a couple of dogs. One who was really compatible with their lifestyle, and the other was—I guess I can say the breed—not compatible with their lifestyle. It was a Doberman. Not not the best example of a Doberman. Like looked the part, but mentally was just scat. And this guy had done you know a whole heap of training with someone else before he came to me, and they'd done some good stuff and some pretty average stuff. But whatever came to us, and we improved this dog a lot. But just living on the Gold Coast and how reactive this dog was to dogs and Where they lived in the Gold Coast. There's always off-lead dogs rushing them. You could do everything right, you could be the best dog owner, and there were things outside of your control that would set this dog back. And what we noticed is we'd go from being, all right, I'm going to explode because there's a dog 50 metres away, over a couple of months we'd build her up to she's walking down busy main roads, there's dogs walking 1 metre away from her. We're even starting to introduce her to dogs. I'd be bringing around dogs and doing playdates with her, and she was socialising beautifully. And we're like, oh my God. But then The next day you'd go for a walk and this dog would rush out and, um, you know, and it, you know, this dog would kick off. And then we noticed that every time she went backwards, she wouldn't just take one step back. She would go back and she would end up further than when we started. So if it took us 2 months to get her there, it'd then take us 6 months. And this went on for a couple of years where we'd get her socializing. We'd have videos. Look at her playing with this dog. We got it back again. And then something would happen and she'd go back. And It was becoming dangerous because she started developing some handler redirection, and that was starting to happen a few times. She'd bitten people. And, you know, when dogs came to her, it had gone from going, hey, I'm going to like bark at you to get your way, to I'm going to like really try and sink my teeth in.

Yeah.

And it was just becoming a thing where you could also see as well, this dog was not happy living on the Gold Coast where there's so many dogs. The owner was just stressed out. It was past the point of being fun for him. or her. The dog was not a happy camper at all, and it just wasn't working. So we had a chat about it. We said, look, we can keep going around this. I think this is going to be her life. We make improvements, we set back, we make improvements, we set back. And she just, you know, wasn't enjoying life. So we talked about the possibility of rehoming and said, look, I'm glad you said it. I always felt like a—

Woof, woof, woof, woof, woof.

Doing it, but I think it might be time. And ultimately the same, we didn't just go and stick her in the pound where she sat there for 6 months. Like He held on to her. He put a thing on like a Doberman rescue group and waited out until the right situation came up. And we had very strict criteria. If she's going to go somewhere, this is what it needs to look like. Nice big place, someone who's going to give her all the attention and exercise and, and Doberman-specific needs, but also somewhere where there's not a lot of dogs around. This dog just was not interested in— if she never saw another dog again, she'd be happy as Larry. So this whole like, you know, dogs need to interact with their own kind is quite often bullshit with a lot of dogs. Anyway, we found an owner who had had like 10 Dobermans, had worked with this issue before, lived on her own out on a farm. She's like, look, I just need a big dog presence around the property to keep me safe. But if she comes here, she'll have all the room to chase quad bikes and run after me and do all this stuff. I'm here all the time, but she'll also never see a dog, most importantly. And now, like I said, you know, that was a year or so ago now. When we checked in with that person in 6 months' time, hey, how's it all going, mate? Dog was happier than ever. Yeah, the lady was happy, and the owner who had the dog was like, mate, honestly, it's the biggest weight off my shoulders. So there's times when it is the most positive thing, but there's also times when I've seen the other side of it. One of my first clients when I got back to Australia from Europe reached out to me with this like Kelpie Lab and whatever, and she just, you know, rehomed it. Cool, we did some training. Anyway, she reached out, didn't hear from her, she reached out of the blue and she's like, oh hey, I got rid of that dog. Oh shit, okay, I thought it was going well. Got another one. So now she got a full-blown Kelpie. I'm like, well, you just realized the, the problem you had of this dog having too much energy was the Kelpie. That dog was actually watered down by being crossed with a chocolate lab. You've now just intensified it by getting a full-blown Kelpie. And this dog was insane. Like I said, jumping fences, react— it was just so charged up. We did some work, we got some improvement, it got too tough, and then same, didn't hear from her, same pattern.

No, she didn't get another one.

Got a third. And at a point I just said, yeah, that's— oh, sorry mate, like, I'm not going to enable this behavior. So there's time when rehoming can be toxic. Like, if you're not gonna— if you love and care for that dog, you should— part of rehoming is finding them a good home, not sticking in the pound for 12 months and letting them do it. Like, if it's time, do it properly and do it right and do your dog a— you know, don't do your dog a disservice. So there's times when it's shit. And I guess the last story I have is when I had, um, I guess I've had this sort of situation a couple of times, but one in, one in particular, I had these people reach out to me saying, oh hey, like, we've been credited sessions. I was like, well, I haven't got you my records, like, what you on about? Anyway, what it came to is they, um, had just rehomed a dog, um, from this old couple. This old couple, same thing, bought a German Shepherd. They'd had Shepherds their whole life. They got to their mid to late 60s, got this puppy, and realized, hang on, we haven't done puppies for 15 years. Like, this is a bit more than we expected.

Yeah.

So same thing, they hung on to the dog for a few months. It was tough on them. They got You know, chewed up and all sorts of things. Dog ruined the house, dog ruined carpet, whatever. They waited till they found the right home. And then part of the condition of the passing on of that dog was you need to do 3 sessions with, you know, down under dog trainer. So we all made sense. I was like, oh, well, these people bought sessions and we'll— yeah, anyway, it all made sense in the end. And they rehomed the dog and we did some sessions, got it all sorted. And same thing, I got to then be a part of the dog's new home, not just their old home. And Same thing, we reach back out to the old people like, are you doing okay? Like, yeah, yeah, we get regular updates from the people. We know they're having a happy life, so we're happy. The dog absolutely lucked out, hit the jackpot, and got the best possible life with these new people. And the new people as well were like, we just got our dream dog, like, how freaking good is this? So there's times when it can be such a win-win-win. And anyway, we just want to try and remove some of the stigma around this because, you know, quite often Sometimes rehoming is the best, is the best option. We're not giving everyone a get out of jail free card. Don't everyone go and—

Yeah.

There's a mass exodus of dogs on Gumtree this weekend, but just accept that it is an option and sometimes the best option. And Jack and I have both been part of, you know, dogs and rehoming as well. And, you know, right now we've just rehomed a dog. Turtle has come to live with us. She was with some friends. Turtle's a greyhound, about 11. And she was a bit too old and a bit too sick to make the flight back to Germany where her owners were relocating. So we've rehomed Turtle. But also, you know, growing up, there were dogs of mine that were rehomed too, where we weren't very good owners. And we'll probably get more into that when we talk about, you know, Jack and I's origin stories and stuff like that. But yeah, it is, it is what it is. Sometimes it happens. It's not the worst thing in the world and you're not a piece of shit for doing it if you go about it the right way.

Yeah. And look, if you are in that situation and you're feeling a bit unsure about whatnot, Please contact us, the Dog People Podcast, because you can always speak to Max and outline the situation. And Max, I'm sure, will give you an honest opinion as to whether, you know, what he thinks.

Be ready for honesty.

That's the only thing. Yeah. Of what he thinks of the rehoming situation or whether or not, you know, if you obviously, if you're not near us, whether he can put you in touch with someone or do some online consultations with you in order to try and help you. But yeah, that was the important, I think, part of wanting to do this is just to make sure that the stigma around having to rehome dogs, you know, There are people that are militant about, you know, the fact that anyone who rehomes a dog is an awful person. We disagree on that fact for, again, the right reasons. So any questions, as always, the Dog People Podcast on Facebook. We'll see you next time. The Dog People Podcast is a Mashed Pumpkin production hosted by Jack Lawrence and Max O'Neill. Edited, produced, and audio production By Jack Lawrence. That sound could mean a lot of things, and when something's going wrong at home, the hardest part can be figuring out what the problem actually is.

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What's going on? I'm Arch Manning, Viore athlete and college quarterback. Whether I'm running, training, traveling, or just unwinding at home, I love doing it in my Core Shorts from Viore. With a breathable boxer brief liner, they're quick to dry, super versatile, and stand up to even my most intense training sessions. Plus, they come in 3 inseams and a ton of colors. Ready to try a pair? Go to viore.com/arch and get 20% off at checkout. I think you're gonna love them as much as I do. That's vuri.com/ARCH and get 20% off your first order. Exclusions apply. Visit the website for full terms and conditions. Not only will you receive 20% off your first purchase, but enjoy free shipping on any US orders over $75 and free returns. Have a great day.